#1: Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, speaking at Joint Committee Meeting of the European Parliament, 7 September 2023: “President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invading Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.
If NATO had intended to be a defensive alliance after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they should have welcomed the buffer states between them and the remnants of the old Soviet Union.
But instead they aggressively and relentlessly expanded the ‘defensive’ alliance right up to Russia’s borders.
We are in WWIII right now, and any future generations that may exist will look back and wonder how we just went about our lives as if anything still mattered.
Scott, I witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was a moment of immense relief for hundreds of millions of Europeans. They wanted freedom from tyranny, and that is why they negotiated to join the EU and NATO. Today, you'll find the most ardent supporters of NATO in the former Comecon countries.
The last time NATO "expanded ... right up to Russia's borders" was in 2004 when the Baltic states joined. Putin could have ordered his T90 tanks to take Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, and they would have done so within a day. If NATO was such a threat, would he not have done so immediately? In two weeks' time we will be celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Baltics joining, and still Putin has not invaded ...
You might lament that there is a clash between the Liberal (millions of peoples' wishes) and Realist (buffer states) views of international politics, but it's not. It's simply an old KGB officer outraged by rejection.
The Baltic states, despite the recent NATO exercises, are not a ripe spot for a massive invasion. Ukraine is. It’s been done before. Ask the old KGB guy if you want details.
I'm interested in why you stated "The Baltic states ... not a ripe spot for [] invasion".
I took your advice, Scott, and I asked the old KGB guy, and this is what he said: "I would like to make it clear to all: our country will continue to actively defend the rights of Russians, our compatriots abroad, using the entire range of available means"
In 2004 when Lithuania joined NATO, its armed forces consisted of a few volunteers who shared a couple of Glocks. The old KGB guy had as many excuses to invade as the million+ ethnic Russians and Russophones living in the Baltics.
The Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939. Or, tried to. It was a debacle. The officer purges under Stalin had left a Soviet army that we still stereotype today - leaderless and relying on mass. And the terrain in the baltics is not well suited to offensive maneuvers especially en masse. As was recently demonstrated.
The Soviets took their losses rebuilt rearmed and came back and the war ended in essentially a stalemate. 70000 Finnish casualties about 350,000 Soviets.
Russia had and still has hope of building institutions compatible with NATO and EU but unlike Eastern Europe, they either could not do so or chose to not do so. Do you have an opinion on what the reason is?
They occupied Eastern Europe after WW2 and have a long history of empire. If they have problems and want help, the West should do so, but they do not appear to have changed sufficiently for some reason. It isn't easy to change culture.
I got advanced notice of what the future held in the new Russia when doing business in the Comecon Bloc and introducing a Soviet technical-scientific institute to a British company in the same industry. The Soviet institute's senior management - all members of the Communist Party - had set up a parallel entity of which they were the shareholders and, as managers of the Soviet entity, had transferred its assets to the parallel entity while leaving all the liabilities where they were.
Some say that the privatisation of British public assets during the same period by Margaret Thatcher amounted to the same thing: the British people owned them, and yet they were encouraged to pay again to own them. So in the British case, the shareholders were invited to invest again in the same assets much like the Monty Python sketch - "That'll be 2 shillings and 4 pence, please Sir", 'But I've already paid you', "No, you haven't", 'Yes, I have', "No ... ", 'Yes ...' - while in the Russian, there was no song and dance, the assets were simply appropriated.
That nobody was more aware that property is theft than members of the Communist Party suggested that, while East and West were imaginatively adapting to the rapidly changing times, they were doing so in dramatically divergent ways. Was there ever going to be a meeting in the middle?!
While I do not understand the UK privatization, and am surprised that there might have been...I hate to say theft, I was always forgiving of Russia going after whatever oil company is still tied up in international litigation.
A part of me thought if initial privatization was messed up, a "do-over" would be o.k. and I saw parallels to the US excess oil profits tax passed under Carter and not revoked by Reagan as US really needed the revenue. Life is full of compromises.
Why are there no oligarchs in Eastern Europe? Did they just not have assets? Maybe if EU funded Eastern Europe? Know there are big transfers via agricultural subsidies.
If someone tied these questions together and provided answers, I might be more sympathetic to Russia feeling like they were being encroached upon. I would have supported doing it for Poland as repayment for WW2 but I might have said no to other states being admitted to EU and NATO. Easy for me to say sitting in the US but you triggered another view that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Hopefully, my random thoughts make some sense. I'm still disturbed by your comment about British privatization having some similarities to Russia; that would really bug me. Now that I think about it, I do seem to remember people being upset about privatization but Margaret Thatcher could do no wrong in my mind. Almost anyway.
What stoltenburg doesn't mention is that back in the last couple of years of the Clinton Presidency when everyone pretended to be getting along famously President Putin asked Clinton if the Russian Federation could join Nato too, by that time nato had approached a number of former Warsaw pact countries asking them to join nato.
Clinton told President Putin that this sounded like a great idea but he would have to "run it past his people".
When he came back a couple of hours later Clinton told him that was absolutely out of the question, meaning that back then long before Russia had done anything to upset 'the west' amerikan security advisors had already planned on attacking Russia to Balkanise it and steal the resources. It also should have alerted Russia to two other facts that i) nato was no defensive alliance. ii) it was actually an extension of amerikan unipolar foreign policy when one looked past all the amerikan schtick about ensuring europe didn't engage in any more stupid intra-euro conflicts, especially after the nato efforts to break up the former Yugoslavia and isolate Serbia, a major Russian ally.
Even so the Russians bent over backwards to assist amerika in the second Iraq war such as supplying Iraqi airforce friend/foe codes used on their fighters. Still amerika desperate for a major power it could deem an adversary to justify military spending continued to beat up the Russian Federation as being an adversary.
There's war-mongering and then there is amerikan war-mongering, the first is bad enough but the second is egregious killing for the sake of stock prices, something which the world had never previously witnessed and which should be in an entirely new category called 'pre-war crimes'.
In NATO's own documents starting back in 1998-99 you can see that Russia was simply on a shelf waiting to be brought out and inflated as necessary to provide whatever threat NATO needed for its nefarious ends. It was precisely at that time that, having gone to Davos with my husband, I asked DefMin Rivkind of the UK precisely the question of whether there was any plan to invite Russia into NATO, given that none of those chosen could claim to be in any way more modern or democratic than Russia. Rivkind was livid, he ranted and raved as if I'd thrown piss in his face. The British moderator asked him to actually answer the question, and Rivkind's reply was, "I HAVE answered the question!" followed by a bit more ranting. It was so clear to me that NATO had kept Russia as "the enemy," and even at its weakest, Russia was referred to in NATO documents as a "potential enemy." By the way, the Russian rep on the dais sat silent throughout Rivkind's insults to Russia. I felt sad for him, that a foreigner had to stand up for his country. Now NATO is in deep trouble, the doll is alive and very big and after incredible abuse from the EU/NATO/US, Russia truly detests all NATOlandia. And if I were Finland, from which I believe drones are launched at St. Petersburg (oh, the Swedes want that city back!), I'd be very careful because Russia won't hesitate to send a drone or two back to your own cities.
Interesting stuff Ms Brown, the thing which I just don't get about Finland is that after the old Soviet Union let them off the hook so lightly for being the northern bulwark for the nazi blockade of the siege of Leningrad/St Petersburg, they have gone back to the same stuff once more. Surely they must realise once the Russian Federation gathers sufficient evidence of Finnish involvement in attacks on Russia, nato will just let them hang. No one from the more rational nato states wants to be responsible for beginning ww3.
The Russian government knows that as much as they still have the same attitude to Finland as the USSR had, that it is simply not worth the hassle, Russia cannot let them off this time.
The people of St Petersburg would go absolutely ape if Russian leadership did that. Most people have relatives who were among the more than 1 million citizens who starved in the nazi siege. When ww2 ended people were so relieved and more concerned with reconstruction but they certainly aren't going to be as forgiving this time around.
yes, I also had a dear Russian friend who was sent to the east with her mother when the war began. Her father stayed behind and defended Leningrad for the entirety of the siege. I cannot imagine the suffering and today the US has enabled all Russia's old enemies. I think they will fail, all of them, and in their failure bring down their self-serving systems and institutions.
I have a dear Russian friend whose mother was born in the seige and stayed. She moved to US to get away in the 90s and the rest of her siblings left for other countries. Parents still there, including the mother born in Leningrad. The transition to democratic capitalism just went poorly and they have never, ever been liberal.
sure, the system collapsed as is the western system today. and it was extraordinarily painful and the USG and its stinking allies in Europe moved in to create the oligarchs who served our purposes, and when Putin threw the bums and the west out where they belong, to their own territory, then the fury grew against Russia. The history stands. You won't change it with your alternative history.
It did collapse. Aside from the gulags under Stalin, it wasn't a terrible place to live and I don't completely understand why it broke down but it clearly was. I think the West is doing o.k. US positively well but we've got advantages Western Europe doesn't have.
Norma, you may have interpreted Malcolm Rifkind's tone of voice as ranting and raving; as an Anglo-Scot, I can assure you that that was his ordinary Scottish-accented voice.
You may also be interested to know that his family hails from Lithuania. You wouldn't have been hard-pressed to find a Lithuanian who would have contradicted your impression of NATO's stance toward the then-young Russia.
But the reason I'm here, Norma, is because "back in 1998-99 ... precisely at that time" Rifkind was not Secretary of State for Defence. He wasn't even a Conservative Member of Parliament, because by that time, Her Majesty had asked Tony Blair and his Labour Party to form the Government, and Rifkind had lost his seat!
Britain and the rest of NATO radically reduced defence spending after the dissolution of the USSR. From spending 4.1% of GDP on defence, under Rifkind (1990-5) it went down to 2.5%, and that 2.5% was loaded with costs which had not been included in accounting previously.
But the context of this comment is made under a Mearsheimer post, whose Offensive Realism argues that states cannot be sure of intentions, as they can change in a flash anyway, so you have to look at capabilities, and Russia's were of being able to destroy the world many times over with its nuclear weapons, all of which which were pointed "precisely at that time" at us!
You may have meant the Jan-Feb 1997 Davos WEF meeting when Rifkind was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Her Majesty's Government. Not a single former Warsaw Pact country was in NATO at the time.
The world was reeling from the First Chechen War, and before that the use of military force to resolve the conflict between Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet, and before that, the Transnistria crisis (which Putin could use to expand the current war).
You kind of did throw piss in his face. No serious person would argue Russian institutions/beliefs have changed as they did in Eastern Europe although many countries such as Poland and many others wanted them but USSR wouldn't allow it. He should have laughed in your face unless you are important in which case, yes, I can understand his anger. You put him in a position where he had to criticize Russia when there was still hope for change.
and how do you define "serious person"? Is it somebody who agrees with you, while those who present a different view than that of the One Narrative -- that Russia was always evil just waiting to happen and had no sellouts who put the CIA straight in the drunk Yeltsin's office -- are insulting and deserve to be hissed and silenced? Some democracy, friend. Some example for the world. Just like our domestic justice system that serves one party.
Your question was larded with statements of opinion presented as facts. I disagree with your opinions and believe I am more informed as was Rivkind (whoever he is) who obviously did not think it a question. It depends on the situation, some places it is called for but you were not in one of those.
You were basically the equivalent of Alex Stein in this video:
sorry, Jeff, no. He was angry by being forced to admit Russia was NEVER being offered entry. You think what you think, I know what I saw. To argue Poland was more democratic than Russia -- totally absurd, and the same goes for its economy. Please, don't rewrite history. I was there when it happened.
There is no comparison; yes Poland is more democratic and has much better institutions than Russia. My opinion is that Russia suffered from some combination of resource curse that is common and bad traditions. The resource curse is something that never gets talked about but I believe it gets short shrift.
goody. keep "your views" and ignore facts. it doesn't work but it feels good. Ukraine is losing. It will lose. And NATO threw itself down the drain after Ukraine by working it up from "not our war" to "our existential war forever!" in leaps of weeks. I will not mourn the demise of NATO, the greatest threat to world security today.
There are lots of people who agree with you. Definite minority in US but it used to be fairly common in Europe. Fall of communism kind of took the wind out of their sails but not you apparently. Lots of people in US don't care and want to be isolationist again; maybe they are right; we'll be fine in US but I would still hate to see it happen.
@debsisdead, I'm interested in your source for "nato had approached a number of former Warsaw pact countries asking them to join nato", specifically that nato had made the approach ...
No…but if they can’t get their hands on the oil and short-circuit the economy of Europe, well then let’s just blow up NordStream. It’s about U.S. hegemony, not just in Europe but around the globe. NATO isn’t a defensive alliance…it’s a tool to maintain U.S. dominance. Europe has become nothing more than one ginormous UNESCO Heritage Site. A museum of western civ artifacts. Meanwhile, America is imploding under the weight of its own “diversity” and Russia looks more and more like the only major world power with a soul.
Manipulation with a mixture of bribery, blackmail & bullying - pick the option which best suits the circumstance. If you screw up - pick another option. This works sufficiently often enough to generate the result required. There's no magic to it, just a requirement for the false belief in your right to rule.
It is sick and the people in the rest of the world know it and have taken that from their careerist politicians and their instigators too long. The jig is up no matter what simplistic rationalizations their lickspittles offer.
Did Jen’s mention the CIA bunkers in Ukraine near the Russian border? What about the 30 plus bio-labs that just happen to be there as well. Nuland’s State Dept, along with the CIA, ran the 2014 coup- another regime change but it is ok because the US are the good guys! Bombing Donbas for 10 years, treating the Russian speaking Ukrainians like second class citizens. What about Merkel stating the Minsk agreements were just stall plays while Ukraine re-armed. I could go on. Jens is definitely an idiot.
True and totally unreported by western media. The controlled narrative that the war was unprovoked and has nothing to do with NATO expansion is repeated endlessly. Remarkable, still the case after 2 years. Maybe people will finally ask themselves how the US knew Russia would invade? Goodness, we are a dumb lot of sheep.
if you challenge these dweebs on why the war against e. Ukraine was not decried they say, oh, I think I saw something once on ABC about that. Right. That's called directed coverage.
US spies on everyone. Wish it was a world where "gentleman don't read other people's mail" but it isn't. Weapons really had not been provided prior to start of war and it is a miracle they survived.
US started arming UA under Trump, Obama refused, smart man. UK and US began training UA military under Obama while FR and DE were focused on Minsk deals. UA also purchased arms and drones from Turkey from 2019, they had 24 Byrakter drones in early 22.
NATO is a defensive organisation and that is why it needs an enemy to continue to exist. That is why Russia was never allowed to join NATO. Otherwise there is nothing to defend against. Then NATO wouldnt need all that expensive military hardware. Since the fall of the USSR, NATO has become an expansionist organisation. NATO needed Russia to remain an enemy in order to contue to exist, in order to continue funding the military industrial complex. Russias invasion of Urkraine may be the immediate cause of this war but NATOs expansionistic policies are at the root causeI...
NATO is NOT a defensive alliance, you don't fight illegal wars for false reasons if you are defensive. Even Kissinger said many a time, before his mind began to weaken, NATO ceased to be a defensive organization when it went into non-combatant Serbia and occupied and gave away part of that country. NATO is an aggressor today and Russia is the shadow on the wall that your NATO's aggression has brought to life.
Are are all useful idiots anti-imperialists? Sure is confusing when they're the head of an army. As confusing as modern media, ideology, and morals... like coughing and pissing in a straight line simultaneously.
If our foreign policy clown parade had western interests at heart to the same extent Mr. Putin has Russian interests at heart, Russia herself would be a NATO partner by now.
Russian trade interests would be deeply entwined with the west’s, the northern passage would belong to NATO, and the rich energy resources of Russia would be feeding the European economy through multiple pipelines.
The west’s foreign policy actions are either the result of terminal bubble-think from an elite that’s never been outside much, or it is being directed by the greed of great financial interests which dream of picking a broken Russia’s bones.
George Kennan predicted that NATO expansion would provoke Russia and eventually produce a disaster prior to the first round of NATO expansion into Poland in the late 90s. Tom Friedman conducted an interview with Kennan entitled “And Now a Word from X” during that period which is worth reading.
It is strange that people have retconned the idea that Putin is a Russian imperialist to the core into their understanding of him. He had been the leader of Russia for 22 years before the Ukraine War started and he’d labored nightly for over a decade to avoid a military conflict, even announcing as far back as 2008 that NATO expansion into Ukraine would be a “red line.”
The argument that Russia (actually the Soviet Union) was "promised" by the US that NATO wouldn't expand just doesn't hold water. First of all, if a "promise" was made, and this is disputed, it was in an oral statement by G. Bush Sr. and his Secretary of State James Baker to Gorbachev. No Treaty, not even a piece of paper to show for it. Now, before anyone gets upset, just think this through. The "promise" was made to Gorbachev, head of the Soviet Union, which fell apart, or that he couldn't keep together. This would annul a "promise," even if it was made. Also, does anyone think that a simple statement made by an administration binds the next seven administrations, anywhere in the world under any circumstances? That would be naive, and certainly Gorbachev wasn't naive.
The Wolfowitz doctrine was developed around 1992. It became, and still is the foreign policy of the U.S. It declares a unipolar world order under the full spectrum dominance of the U.S. Russia is an adversary under the Wolfowitz doctrine. NATO is one very important tool in that world dominance toolbox. This current NATO proxy war has a number of underlying causes…NATO expansion being one of them, but another equally important factor is the threat posed to US hegemony in Europe via European reliance on Russian energy. This why the U.S. and its Northern European collaborators blew up NordStream. As for being appalled by Trump’s disdain for NATO, the EU should see it as a clarion call to get out. It likely won’t happen, because as we can see, the EU has somehow become conflated with NATO itself. Just consider the ambitions of von der Leyen.
NATO is in the grip of deep psychosis, believing that they will beat anybody because they are large and used to be rich. But large has become too large and unwieldy and NATO members are now growling at one another, much more threatening than anything the Russians could do. What the Russians have done is turn the tables by wearing NATOlandia down, igniting old quarrels, fueling new revanchism (or old!). Our formerly arrogant "peaceniks" in Sweden and Finland are now back in the Nazi uniforms and even more arrogant. US NUKES! How lacking in vision. Why the obvious bravado of saying the Euros will invade Ukraine, when all it means is that the western regions and NATO Central in L'vov will be mercilessly bombed until they look like Avdeyevka? It is as if Russia said to NATO, you fight too many illegal wars, all on your own, so we are invading Germany. How could NATO be anything like a defensive organization when all its hardware is on one nation's border? Finally, I detest the talk of war by lunatics such as Macron and the German Luftwaffe -- the one that bombed the UK relentlessly in WWII and are now besties with Brits and French, all conniving toward WWIII. Where are the international tribunals to judge these criminals?
If NATO had intended to be a defensive alliance after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they should have welcomed the buffer states between them and the remnants of the old Soviet Union.
But instead they aggressively and relentlessly expanded the ‘defensive’ alliance right up to Russia’s borders.
We are in WWIII right now, and any future generations that may exist will look back and wonder how we just went about our lives as if anything still mattered.
Scott, I witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was a moment of immense relief for hundreds of millions of Europeans. They wanted freedom from tyranny, and that is why they negotiated to join the EU and NATO. Today, you'll find the most ardent supporters of NATO in the former Comecon countries.
The last time NATO "expanded ... right up to Russia's borders" was in 2004 when the Baltic states joined. Putin could have ordered his T90 tanks to take Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, and they would have done so within a day. If NATO was such a threat, would he not have done so immediately? In two weeks' time we will be celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Baltics joining, and still Putin has not invaded ...
You might lament that there is a clash between the Liberal (millions of peoples' wishes) and Realist (buffer states) views of international politics, but it's not. It's simply an old KGB officer outraged by rejection.
The Baltic states, despite the recent NATO exercises, are not a ripe spot for a massive invasion. Ukraine is. It’s been done before. Ask the old KGB guy if you want details.
I'm interested in why you stated "The Baltic states ... not a ripe spot for [] invasion".
I took your advice, Scott, and I asked the old KGB guy, and this is what he said: "I would like to make it clear to all: our country will continue to actively defend the rights of Russians, our compatriots abroad, using the entire range of available means"
[source: The Kremlin http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/46131]
In 2004 when Lithuania joined NATO, its armed forces consisted of a few volunteers who shared a couple of Glocks. The old KGB guy had as many excuses to invade as the million+ ethnic Russians and Russophones living in the Baltics.
I’m sure Putin knows what happened in 1939 and will not seek to repeat that debacle.
Ok, I'll follow the thread ... what does Putin know what happened in 1939?
The Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939. Or, tried to. It was a debacle. The officer purges under Stalin had left a Soviet army that we still stereotype today - leaderless and relying on mass. And the terrain in the baltics is not well suited to offensive maneuvers especially en masse. As was recently demonstrated.
The Soviets took their losses rebuilt rearmed and came back and the war ended in essentially a stalemate. 70000 Finnish casualties about 350,000 Soviets.
Russia had and still has hope of building institutions compatible with NATO and EU but unlike Eastern Europe, they either could not do so or chose to not do so. Do you have an opinion on what the reason is?
They occupied Eastern Europe after WW2 and have a long history of empire. If they have problems and want help, the West should do so, but they do not appear to have changed sufficiently for some reason. It isn't easy to change culture.
I got advanced notice of what the future held in the new Russia when doing business in the Comecon Bloc and introducing a Soviet technical-scientific institute to a British company in the same industry. The Soviet institute's senior management - all members of the Communist Party - had set up a parallel entity of which they were the shareholders and, as managers of the Soviet entity, had transferred its assets to the parallel entity while leaving all the liabilities where they were.
Some say that the privatisation of British public assets during the same period by Margaret Thatcher amounted to the same thing: the British people owned them, and yet they were encouraged to pay again to own them. So in the British case, the shareholders were invited to invest again in the same assets much like the Monty Python sketch - "That'll be 2 shillings and 4 pence, please Sir", 'But I've already paid you', "No, you haven't", 'Yes, I have', "No ... ", 'Yes ...' - while in the Russian, there was no song and dance, the assets were simply appropriated.
That nobody was more aware that property is theft than members of the Communist Party suggested that, while East and West were imaginatively adapting to the rapidly changing times, they were doing so in dramatically divergent ways. Was there ever going to be a meeting in the middle?!
While I do not understand the UK privatization, and am surprised that there might have been...I hate to say theft, I was always forgiving of Russia going after whatever oil company is still tied up in international litigation.
A part of me thought if initial privatization was messed up, a "do-over" would be o.k. and I saw parallels to the US excess oil profits tax passed under Carter and not revoked by Reagan as US really needed the revenue. Life is full of compromises.
Why are there no oligarchs in Eastern Europe? Did they just not have assets? Maybe if EU funded Eastern Europe? Know there are big transfers via agricultural subsidies.
If someone tied these questions together and provided answers, I might be more sympathetic to Russia feeling like they were being encroached upon. I would have supported doing it for Poland as repayment for WW2 but I might have said no to other states being admitted to EU and NATO. Easy for me to say sitting in the US but you triggered another view that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Hopefully, my random thoughts make some sense. I'm still disturbed by your comment about British privatization having some similarities to Russia; that would really bug me. Now that I think about it, I do seem to remember people being upset about privatization but Margaret Thatcher could do no wrong in my mind. Almost anyway.
The "communists" moved to the US
When we look at NATO, it has continued on an offensive stance against Russia for a long time.
From meddling in the Baltics to the current situation in Ukraine.
Useful idiots? Maybe we are simply tired of war.
What "meddling in the Baltics"?
What stoltenburg doesn't mention is that back in the last couple of years of the Clinton Presidency when everyone pretended to be getting along famously President Putin asked Clinton if the Russian Federation could join Nato too, by that time nato had approached a number of former Warsaw pact countries asking them to join nato.
Clinton told President Putin that this sounded like a great idea but he would have to "run it past his people".
When he came back a couple of hours later Clinton told him that was absolutely out of the question, meaning that back then long before Russia had done anything to upset 'the west' amerikan security advisors had already planned on attacking Russia to Balkanise it and steal the resources. It also should have alerted Russia to two other facts that i) nato was no defensive alliance. ii) it was actually an extension of amerikan unipolar foreign policy when one looked past all the amerikan schtick about ensuring europe didn't engage in any more stupid intra-euro conflicts, especially after the nato efforts to break up the former Yugoslavia and isolate Serbia, a major Russian ally.
Even so the Russians bent over backwards to assist amerika in the second Iraq war such as supplying Iraqi airforce friend/foe codes used on their fighters. Still amerika desperate for a major power it could deem an adversary to justify military spending continued to beat up the Russian Federation as being an adversary.
There's war-mongering and then there is amerikan war-mongering, the first is bad enough but the second is egregious killing for the sake of stock prices, something which the world had never previously witnessed and which should be in an entirely new category called 'pre-war crimes'.
In NATO's own documents starting back in 1998-99 you can see that Russia was simply on a shelf waiting to be brought out and inflated as necessary to provide whatever threat NATO needed for its nefarious ends. It was precisely at that time that, having gone to Davos with my husband, I asked DefMin Rivkind of the UK precisely the question of whether there was any plan to invite Russia into NATO, given that none of those chosen could claim to be in any way more modern or democratic than Russia. Rivkind was livid, he ranted and raved as if I'd thrown piss in his face. The British moderator asked him to actually answer the question, and Rivkind's reply was, "I HAVE answered the question!" followed by a bit more ranting. It was so clear to me that NATO had kept Russia as "the enemy," and even at its weakest, Russia was referred to in NATO documents as a "potential enemy." By the way, the Russian rep on the dais sat silent throughout Rivkind's insults to Russia. I felt sad for him, that a foreigner had to stand up for his country. Now NATO is in deep trouble, the doll is alive and very big and after incredible abuse from the EU/NATO/US, Russia truly detests all NATOlandia. And if I were Finland, from which I believe drones are launched at St. Petersburg (oh, the Swedes want that city back!), I'd be very careful because Russia won't hesitate to send a drone or two back to your own cities.
Interesting stuff Ms Brown, the thing which I just don't get about Finland is that after the old Soviet Union let them off the hook so lightly for being the northern bulwark for the nazi blockade of the siege of Leningrad/St Petersburg, they have gone back to the same stuff once more. Surely they must realise once the Russian Federation gathers sufficient evidence of Finnish involvement in attacks on Russia, nato will just let them hang. No one from the more rational nato states wants to be responsible for beginning ww3.
The Russian government knows that as much as they still have the same attitude to Finland as the USSR had, that it is simply not worth the hassle, Russia cannot let them off this time.
The people of St Petersburg would go absolutely ape if Russian leadership did that. Most people have relatives who were among the more than 1 million citizens who starved in the nazi siege. When ww2 ended people were so relieved and more concerned with reconstruction but they certainly aren't going to be as forgiving this time around.
yes, I also had a dear Russian friend who was sent to the east with her mother when the war began. Her father stayed behind and defended Leningrad for the entirety of the siege. I cannot imagine the suffering and today the US has enabled all Russia's old enemies. I think they will fail, all of them, and in their failure bring down their self-serving systems and institutions.
I have a dear Russian friend whose mother was born in the seige and stayed. She moved to US to get away in the 90s and the rest of her siblings left for other countries. Parents still there, including the mother born in Leningrad. The transition to democratic capitalism just went poorly and they have never, ever been liberal.
sure, the system collapsed as is the western system today. and it was extraordinarily painful and the USG and its stinking allies in Europe moved in to create the oligarchs who served our purposes, and when Putin threw the bums and the west out where they belong, to their own territory, then the fury grew against Russia. The history stands. You won't change it with your alternative history.
It did collapse. Aside from the gulags under Stalin, it wasn't a terrible place to live and I don't completely understand why it broke down but it clearly was. I think the West is doing o.k. US positively well but we've got advantages Western Europe doesn't have.
Norma, you may have interpreted Malcolm Rifkind's tone of voice as ranting and raving; as an Anglo-Scot, I can assure you that that was his ordinary Scottish-accented voice.
You may also be interested to know that his family hails from Lithuania. You wouldn't have been hard-pressed to find a Lithuanian who would have contradicted your impression of NATO's stance toward the then-young Russia.
But the reason I'm here, Norma, is because "back in 1998-99 ... precisely at that time" Rifkind was not Secretary of State for Defence. He wasn't even a Conservative Member of Parliament, because by that time, Her Majesty had asked Tony Blair and his Labour Party to form the Government, and Rifkind had lost his seat!
Britain and the rest of NATO radically reduced defence spending after the dissolution of the USSR. From spending 4.1% of GDP on defence, under Rifkind (1990-5) it went down to 2.5%, and that 2.5% was loaded with costs which had not been included in accounting previously.
But the context of this comment is made under a Mearsheimer post, whose Offensive Realism argues that states cannot be sure of intentions, as they can change in a flash anyway, so you have to look at capabilities, and Russia's were of being able to destroy the world many times over with its nuclear weapons, all of which which were pointed "precisely at that time" at us!
You may have meant the Jan-Feb 1997 Davos WEF meeting when Rifkind was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Her Majesty's Government. Not a single former Warsaw Pact country was in NATO at the time.
The world was reeling from the First Chechen War, and before that the use of military force to resolve the conflict between Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet, and before that, the Transnistria crisis (which Putin could use to expand the current war).
You kind of did throw piss in his face. No serious person would argue Russian institutions/beliefs have changed as they did in Eastern Europe although many countries such as Poland and many others wanted them but USSR wouldn't allow it. He should have laughed in your face unless you are important in which case, yes, I can understand his anger. You put him in a position where he had to criticize Russia when there was still hope for change.
and how do you define "serious person"? Is it somebody who agrees with you, while those who present a different view than that of the One Narrative -- that Russia was always evil just waiting to happen and had no sellouts who put the CIA straight in the drunk Yeltsin's office -- are insulting and deserve to be hissed and silenced? Some democracy, friend. Some example for the world. Just like our domestic justice system that serves one party.
Your question was larded with statements of opinion presented as facts. I disagree with your opinions and believe I am more informed as was Rivkind (whoever he is) who obviously did not think it a question. It depends on the situation, some places it is called for but you were not in one of those.
You were basically the equivalent of Alex Stein in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R67tpqSjeE
sorry, Jeff, no. He was angry by being forced to admit Russia was NEVER being offered entry. You think what you think, I know what I saw. To argue Poland was more democratic than Russia -- totally absurd, and the same goes for its economy. Please, don't rewrite history. I was there when it happened.
There is no comparison; yes Poland is more democratic and has much better institutions than Russia. My opinion is that Russia suffered from some combination of resource curse that is common and bad traditions. The resource curse is something that never gets talked about but I believe it gets short shrift.
goody. keep "your views" and ignore facts. it doesn't work but it feels good. Ukraine is losing. It will lose. And NATO threw itself down the drain after Ukraine by working it up from "not our war" to "our existential war forever!" in leaps of weeks. I will not mourn the demise of NATO, the greatest threat to world security today.
There are lots of people who agree with you. Definite minority in US but it used to be fairly common in Europe. Fall of communism kind of took the wind out of their sails but not you apparently. Lots of people in US don't care and want to be isolationist again; maybe they are right; we'll be fine in US but I would still hate to see it happen.
@debsisdead, I'm interested in your source for "nato had approached a number of former Warsaw pact countries asking them to join nato", specifically that nato had made the approach ...
US plans to invade Russia to get its resources? That's quite the leap there. Illustrates the fact that many have lost touch with reality.
No…but if they can’t get their hands on the oil and short-circuit the economy of Europe, well then let’s just blow up NordStream. It’s about U.S. hegemony, not just in Europe but around the globe. NATO isn’t a defensive alliance…it’s a tool to maintain U.S. dominance. Europe has become nothing more than one ginormous UNESCO Heritage Site. A museum of western civ artifacts. Meanwhile, America is imploding under the weight of its own “diversity” and Russia looks more and more like the only major world power with a soul.
Short answer. Yes. The EU is a U.S. client state.
Hmmm. Is the US really that good at manipulating opinions of European leaders?
Manipulation with a mixture of bribery, blackmail & bullying - pick the option which best suits the circumstance. If you screw up - pick another option. This works sufficiently often enough to generate the result required. There's no magic to it, just a requirement for the false belief in your right to rule.
It is sick and the people in the rest of the world know it and have taken that from their careerist politicians and their instigators too long. The jig is up no matter what simplistic rationalizations their lickspittles offer.
Did Jen’s mention the CIA bunkers in Ukraine near the Russian border? What about the 30 plus bio-labs that just happen to be there as well. Nuland’s State Dept, along with the CIA, ran the 2014 coup- another regime change but it is ok because the US are the good guys! Bombing Donbas for 10 years, treating the Russian speaking Ukrainians like second class citizens. What about Merkel stating the Minsk agreements were just stall plays while Ukraine re-armed. I could go on. Jens is definitely an idiot.
True and totally unreported by western media. The controlled narrative that the war was unprovoked and has nothing to do with NATO expansion is repeated endlessly. Remarkable, still the case after 2 years. Maybe people will finally ask themselves how the US knew Russia would invade? Goodness, we are a dumb lot of sheep.
if you challenge these dweebs on why the war against e. Ukraine was not decried they say, oh, I think I saw something once on ABC about that. Right. That's called directed coverage.
US spies on everyone. Wish it was a world where "gentleman don't read other people's mail" but it isn't. Weapons really had not been provided prior to start of war and it is a miracle they survived.
US started arming UA under Trump, Obama refused, smart man. UK and US began training UA military under Obama while FR and DE were focused on Minsk deals. UA also purchased arms and drones from Turkey from 2019, they had 24 Byrakter drones in early 22.
NATO is a defensive organisation and that is why it needs an enemy to continue to exist. That is why Russia was never allowed to join NATO. Otherwise there is nothing to defend against. Then NATO wouldnt need all that expensive military hardware. Since the fall of the USSR, NATO has become an expansionist organisation. NATO needed Russia to remain an enemy in order to contue to exist, in order to continue funding the military industrial complex. Russias invasion of Urkraine may be the immediate cause of this war but NATOs expansionistic policies are at the root causeI...
NATO is NOT a defensive alliance, you don't fight illegal wars for false reasons if you are defensive. Even Kissinger said many a time, before his mind began to weaken, NATO ceased to be a defensive organization when it went into non-combatant Serbia and occupied and gave away part of that country. NATO is an aggressor today and Russia is the shadow on the wall that your NATO's aggression has brought to life.
Also true.
Let them slaughter Bosnians or was that fake news?
Messing with Putin is a mistake.
Are are all useful idiots anti-imperialists? Sure is confusing when they're the head of an army. As confusing as modern media, ideology, and morals... like coughing and pissing in a straight line simultaneously.
If our foreign policy clown parade had western interests at heart to the same extent Mr. Putin has Russian interests at heart, Russia herself would be a NATO partner by now.
Russian trade interests would be deeply entwined with the west’s, the northern passage would belong to NATO, and the rich energy resources of Russia would be feeding the European economy through multiple pipelines.
The west’s foreign policy actions are either the result of terminal bubble-think from an elite that’s never been outside much, or it is being directed by the greed of great financial interests which dream of picking a broken Russia’s bones.
Either way, this isn’t going well.
Very nice point, JJM. Keep up the great work.
An excellent juxtaposition of the same!
George Kennan predicted that NATO expansion would provoke Russia and eventually produce a disaster prior to the first round of NATO expansion into Poland in the late 90s. Tom Friedman conducted an interview with Kennan entitled “And Now a Word from X” during that period which is worth reading.
It is strange that people have retconned the idea that Putin is a Russian imperialist to the core into their understanding of him. He had been the leader of Russia for 22 years before the Ukraine War started and he’d labored nightly for over a decade to avoid a military conflict, even announcing as far back as 2008 that NATO expansion into Ukraine would be a “red line.”
The argument that Russia (actually the Soviet Union) was "promised" by the US that NATO wouldn't expand just doesn't hold water. First of all, if a "promise" was made, and this is disputed, it was in an oral statement by G. Bush Sr. and his Secretary of State James Baker to Gorbachev. No Treaty, not even a piece of paper to show for it. Now, before anyone gets upset, just think this through. The "promise" was made to Gorbachev, head of the Soviet Union, which fell apart, or that he couldn't keep together. This would annul a "promise," even if it was made. Also, does anyone think that a simple statement made by an administration binds the next seven administrations, anywhere in the world under any circumstances? That would be naive, and certainly Gorbachev wasn't naive.
The Wolfowitz doctrine was developed around 1992. It became, and still is the foreign policy of the U.S. It declares a unipolar world order under the full spectrum dominance of the U.S. Russia is an adversary under the Wolfowitz doctrine. NATO is one very important tool in that world dominance toolbox. This current NATO proxy war has a number of underlying causes…NATO expansion being one of them, but another equally important factor is the threat posed to US hegemony in Europe via European reliance on Russian energy. This why the U.S. and its Northern European collaborators blew up NordStream. As for being appalled by Trump’s disdain for NATO, the EU should see it as a clarion call to get out. It likely won’t happen, because as we can see, the EU has somehow become conflated with NATO itself. Just consider the ambitions of von der Leyen.
Thank you Sir for this mischievous piece)))
NATO is in the grip of deep psychosis, believing that they will beat anybody because they are large and used to be rich. But large has become too large and unwieldy and NATO members are now growling at one another, much more threatening than anything the Russians could do. What the Russians have done is turn the tables by wearing NATOlandia down, igniting old quarrels, fueling new revanchism (or old!). Our formerly arrogant "peaceniks" in Sweden and Finland are now back in the Nazi uniforms and even more arrogant. US NUKES! How lacking in vision. Why the obvious bravado of saying the Euros will invade Ukraine, when all it means is that the western regions and NATO Central in L'vov will be mercilessly bombed until they look like Avdeyevka? It is as if Russia said to NATO, you fight too many illegal wars, all on your own, so we are invading Germany. How could NATO be anything like a defensive organization when all its hardware is on one nation's border? Finally, I detest the talk of war by lunatics such as Macron and the German Luftwaffe -- the one that bombed the UK relentlessly in WWII and are now besties with Brits and French, all conniving toward WWIII. Where are the international tribunals to judge these criminals?
Much appreciated, Professor, for highlighting what the media tries to bury.